Mile High Report
Denver Broncos rookie punter Jeremy Crawshaw averaged 37.0 and netted 27.7 on his three punts.
He punted three times, two short-field punts and one long-field punt. Neither of his short-field punts were downed inside the 20. That’s bad. Let’s use my punt percentage metric which looks at the yards that the punter could potentially gain (denominator) and how many he “gained” as the numerator.
Crawshaw’s first two punts were from roughly mid-field. I call anything past the team’s 35 as a short field punt. On these the best that the punter can do is to get the ball downed at the one. That is 100%. So the denominator for his first punt is 50 (if were to be downed at the one). He hit the ball to the 36, but is was returned to the 43 for a net of eight yards. From what I remember he did not hit the ball high enough for the coverage to get under it. This gave the 49er returner plenty of room to work. This punt got a 16% because he outkicked the coverage.
His second punt was from the SF 45, meaning that is was in FG range for many kickers (62 yard attempt), but Sean Payton was more interested in seeing if Jeremy could pin the 49ers deep. He didn’t. This one was fair-caught at the 20, for a 25 yard punt, 61%. Still not good (25/41).
His final punt of the afternoon was a his only long-field punt, from the Bronco 22. He didn’t hit this one very well, but it took a good bounce and ended up being downed at the 49er 28. On long-field punts I set the ideal as a 65 yard punt. So for this punt he got a 77% which was a little above average for last season in the NFL.
I will be watching him closely next game to see how he performs. He was not good in his first game, but he could have just had some first game jitters.
For what it’s worth, Riley Dixon, who is now punting for the Buccaneers, also had three punts. He average 49.0 and had a net of 42.0 with one inside the 20 and one touchback.
